Chapter 9
Daniel found twenty-seven uses of the old power of attorney.
Twenty-three were routine.
Four were not.
The first questionable use occurred four years earlier.
Gavin signed a guaranty amendment affecting Southline’s credit line without telling Sienna.
No loss resulted.
The second allowed Southline reserves to be temporarily swept into a shared cash-management account.
Again, the money returned.
The third approved a related-party loan to Cole Meridian.
$600,000.
Repaid eight months later with interest.
The fourth was the current $8.6 million refinance.
A pattern emerged.
Gavin tested the authority in increasingly consequential ways.
Each time nothing bad happened, the next use became easier to justify.
Rebecca described it bluntly.
“He trained himself to believe successful concealment meant consent didn’t matter.”
Sienna sat in silence.
Then Daniel found a private spreadsheet on Gavin’s company server.
Not hidden particularly well.
It tracked potential funding sources for the Milwaukee project.
Bank extension.
Private investor.
Asset sale.
Marjorie capital.
Southline refinance.
Beside the final option:
Use S.POA if timing impossible.
Sienna stared.
“How old is that entry?”
“Eleven months.”
Before the pregnancy became visibly advanced.
Before labor.
Before the hospital bag.
The plan existed long before Monday.
Another entry had been added three months later:
Best window = delivery / immediate postpartum. Low chance of interference.
Nico stood.
Rebecca said:
“Sit.”
He remained standing.
Sienna looked at him.
“Dad.”
He sat.
The major twist was close now.
They had assumed Gavin used labor opportunistically because the project suddenly needed money.
The spreadsheet showed something colder.
He had identified Sienna’s childbirth as the preferred moment months earlier.
Then Daniel found the reason.
Southline’s governing agreement required notice to all owners before any extraordinary pledge unless an attorney-in-fact certified the principal was unavailable and urgent business conditions existed.
The refinance file contained such a certification.
Drafted before Sienna went into labor.
It stated:
Principal expected to be temporarily unavailable due to imminent childbirth and postpartum recovery.
Sienna read it twice.
“He wrote me out before I was unavailable.”
Rebecca nodded.
That was the edge of Part 10.
But one question remained.
Why did Gavin believe he could do this and still remain married to Sienna afterward?
May you like
The answer was buried not in the bank file.
But in seven years of marital planning.
